Employer accuses liquidator of fraud

Adele Ferguson and Ben Butler

LIQUIDATOR Glenn Anthony Crisp committed fraud and misappropriated more than $500,000, some of which was used to pay for renovations on his suburban property, his former employer alleges.

Mr Crisp is a veteran insolvency practitioner who has worked on jobs including Mick Gatto's Elite Dogman & Riggers, which collapsed earlier this year owing the Tax Office more than $3 million, and trucking company Viking Group, which failed last year amid allegations of fraud.

He is one of just 523 official liquidators in Australia. They hold a privileged position of trust as officers of the court, appointed by judges.

In a statement of claim filed in the County Court of Victoria, Mr Crisp's former employer, RSM Bird Cameron, alleges he transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees earned from a long-running insolvency job into his personal bank account.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is believed to be looking into Mr Crisp's behaviour.

RSM alleges Mr Crisp, who became an equity partner in the firm four months after being appointed liquidator of Foodlife Inventory Holdings in 2002, committed fraud by recording a lower charge-out rate for himself and RSM employees than the rates approved by Foodlife's creditors.

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Mr Crisp allegedly paid the difference to himself, and to his creditors. According to the statement of claim, he maintained a ''personal accounting system'' in the form of spreadsheets recording the ''unlawful payments'' made from the account, but failed to provide the information to RSM.

While he has yet to file a defence, Mr Crisp denied the allegations in a statement to Fairfax Media on Wednesday by his counsel, Simon Wilson, QC.

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The allegations against Mr Crisp were not properly pleaded and he also had a ''complete defence'' under a deed of release between him and RSM, signed when he left the firm in August, the statement said.

In addition, Mr Crisp alleges that all documents relating to his pay for the Foodlife job were available to RSM before he left the firm.

At an out-of-hours Supreme Court hearing last month, Mr Wilson attempted to obtain an injunction stopping Fairfax Media publishing details of the case, telling the court that if it allowed the allegations to be published, ''the risk is that he will be ruined publicly''.